I have a freshly dinged Druid, as in "still grinding rep and finishing zones" fresh. The guild are nice guys and they've decided to try to haul me through Dragon Soul. Their theory is that they can throw enough gear on me and they know that I can generally stay back and DPS. The catch is that I'm tasked with getting up to speed on being a caster. I are not a caster! I'm long time physical DPS and the closest I come to being a caster is that I sometimes play a Hunter and I'm at least familiar with ranged combat.

All advice is welcome, be it rotation tips or pointers on fights. Since I don't read any significant amount of Chinese and most of them are weak in English, I would like to go in reasonably well prepared. I realize that I'm spec'd Ballast [sic] and they're figuring they can do it down one man, but I prefer to carry as much of my weight as I can.

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In Chinese: glasses are yanjing; eyes are yanjing, and the beer of Beijing is Yanjing. When speaking, the difference is in the tones. Did I just order a glass of beer or a glass of eyes?

No, that *should* be Balance. Right now, I feel like I've spec'd Ballast -- extra weight carried along on the journey.

Quote:

You should ask in the class forum.

There are folks who may drop by that don't necessarily make it over to the class forum. Things over here have been mainly requests for SoR, so I thought that we might have (gasp) an actual question about WOW on the main forum.

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In Chinese: glasses are yanjing; eyes are yanjing, and the beer of Beijing is Yanjing. When speaking, the difference is in the tones. Did I just order a glass of beer or a glass of eyes?

The remaining points can go wherever you like. Solar Beam and Lunar Shower are optional, but I'd still recommend them. Solar Beam is useful in encounters with casting mobs and doesn't require a turn to charge, and Lunar Shower allows you to keep some dps going while moving. You will move. A lot.

Gear weights are as so:

Int > Spellpower > Hit > Haste > Mastery > Crit

Though with a fresh druid, you're likely just going to want whatever has the higher ilvl, and thus higher int score. Int is just worth that much.

For actually dpsing, above all remember this rule: Always Be Casting, or ABC.

Boomkin dps isn't too hard.

1. Keep DoTs up. Always. Refresh them before they fall off, and refresh them if you get a spellpower or int proc or whatever. This includes Eclipses. If it makes you more powerful, reapply the dot, because it will now be more powerful than the old version already on the mob. 2. Cast Starsurge. If it's not on cooldown, it needs to be. Period. Same goes with Force of Nature (the treant spell) 3. Cast Wrath until you get a lunar eclipse, then cast Starfire until you get a solar eclipse. Cast Wrath again until you get a lunar, etc. It's cyclic. Just keep going back and forth.

It's really not that hard. Just keep the DoTs on the target, Starsurge on cooldown, and cycle between the eclipses. Easy.

If there's multiple targets, just keep your DoTs up on all of them and focus down one.

Is caster somehow better at being a dead weight dps than kitty? It's all about not standing in stuff, and I can't think of anything kitty is supposed to stand in that caster isn't. I would think that it'd be better to play a spec you're familiar with than to worry about learning new spells and new fights at the same time.

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Beohrn -- 85 druid Brandmanen -- 85 Hunter

"Skill is a measure of how fast a player can turn experience into competence." -- Anedris, EJ forums "The warrior acts, the fool reacts"

Please pardon the ego, it keeps getting stuck in doorways. I'm working on it.

Also, boomkin is much less JOHN. F*CKING. MADDEN. than feral kitty, and this easier to do competitive dps with.

Kitties, sadly, aren't as JFM as they used to be. Which is why it breaks my heart every time I run into one who can't push more than 10k DPS in Dragon Soul. It's like watching a guy without thumbs trying to text someone. And not on a smart phone with touchscreen, but one of those old phones where you had to get downright violent when typing.

If you can keep Mangle, Rip and Rake up on your target and refresh Savage Roar as much as possible while dumping excess energy into Shred, you should be able to do 12-18k DPS, depending on your gear. It's not 20k, like a Boomkin, but it's much easier because of the way the RNG element works. As a Boomkin, RNG determines which buttons you press. As a Kitty, RNG determines how often you press one button. Omen proc? Shred! Omen proc? Shred! Omen proc? Shred! None of that "Whoops, just went into Lunar Eclipse, better do whatever, or my DPS will drop."

I might be biased, though, but only because Kitties are more awesome than Boomkins.

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Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.

I love noxxic much more than EJ. AN interesting thing about Balance is that some of the stats are similar to Resto, so in a pinch you can share gear to heal.

Remember to first layer your DoTs. Also, a mod that I used to use that was pretty good was Boomkinator. (It would let me know what casts to use, to build up damage.)

Stage 1: Spam cast Wrath until you have the Eclipse (Lunar) buff. Stage 2: Spam cast Starfire for the duration of the Eclipse (Lunar) buff. Stage 3: Once the Eclipse (Lunar) buff expires, continue to spam cast Starfire until you have the Eclipse (Solar) buff. Stage 4: Spam cast Wrath for the duration of the Eclipse (Solar) buff.